Chris Ferguson History, profile, and background

Among famous poker players and poker greats, UCLA computer science PhD Chris Ferguson may be the best of the best poker players. He is totally unique with his long locks, often unshaven appearance, black Stetson, and ever present wrap-around shades...and his ability to win big at Texas Holdem.

While he does not look the part, Chris Ferguson is a brilliant mind, and he chooses to apply his powerful logic skills and calculations abilities to a game that he loves and at which he makes a considerable amount of money. Very few poker players are his peers, and he has the winners' bracelets to prove it. And he has the most money winning finishes of any famous poker players known to history. And it all goes back to when he was just a 4th grade nothing and lost a poker game that made him go broke--he decided there and then never to go broke again.

Often called "Jesus" (or "Chris Jesus" in a bad pun) because of his long brown hair (and his supernatural poker ability), Chris Ferguson has been cavorting with poker players since the mid 1990s, and he entered his first World Series of Poker tournament in 1995 (mind you he would not be kicked out of university with his degree for another four years at this point--a little more on that below). These days he is a member of the Full Tilt Texas Holdem poker team, and he says that he expects to stay on the WPT and WSOP circuits for the foreseeable future.

Ferguson uses little if any of the psychological aspects of poker playing strategy, a highly unique trait in and of itself. For this poker great, poker is a game of pure, cold calculation and keeping a straight face at all times. He never takes big risks, but he doesn't have to because he can so utterly calculate the poker pot odds and his situational circumstances with seeming flawlessness. His love of learning kept him in higher education as a student for 18 years, including 13 as a graduate student! It may have been during all those years at university that Ferguson learned his second most well-known skill: his ability to slice fruits vegetables by throwing playing cards at them.

Besides being a full-time championship poker player and a former full time student, from 1992 to 1996, Chris Ferguson's History includes working for the California State Lottery, analyzing and designing new games. So his youth was not entirely misspent.

As Chris himself tells it: "I've played since before I can remember. I am self-taught, and played for money as far back as the fourth grade. In high school, I played a lot of poker while many of my friends chased girls. I improved my skills by playing online back in the early 1990s on IRC, way before any of the current real-money sites existed. That is where I really learned to play poker, and in particular, no-limit holdem. I became serious about poker around 1994 and started playing in the World Series."

"Dr." Chris Ferguson plays with the Full Tilt Poker team because he loves helping up and coming players learn how to play better by practicing online. As he said, he has been playing poker online longer than most people, as he started when the Internet was in its infancy and none of today's popular online Texas Holdem sites even existed. As in all things he puts his mind to, he seems to be always far ahead of the times...and the flop...and the turn...and the River...Truly, he may well be the greatest of the famous poker players. Playing with him and Full Tilt online is one of the best ways for anyone to sharpen their poker game.

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